Scrolling around...March 1, 2013
“Ratzinger slept well and will spend today praying”
All is quiet in Castel Gandolfo today as the Pope spends the day resting and praying. The date of the Conclave is yet to be announced...
...However the comet’s trajectory is still uncertain, which leaves a small chance it could impact the planet, said Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin, who worked on calculating the course of the celestial body. The comet will be travelling at a speed of 56 kilometers per second relative to Mars when it passes; if they do collide, the resulting explosion would be equal to a 20,000-gigaton bomb blast – powerful enough to leave a 50-kilometer crater on the planetary surface...
Florida College Says Christian Group Can’t Have Christian Leaders
Rollins College has determined that a Christian student organization is in violation of the school’s nondiscrimination policy because the group requires its leaders to be followers of Christ...
Bishop enforces Catholic doctrine; press goes, ‘Wha …?’
...Clearly what the bishop is doing is supporting Vatican efforts to teach the doctrine that the church already has. Also note that, under Catholic law, these schools are under the direct authority of the bishop. That’s important in a hierarchical church that, to be blunt, is not a democracy. Journalists struggle to grasp that fact.
So this bishop wants his teachers to agree to defend or, I would imagine, to stop attacking the teachings of the Catholic Church...
Egypt: Muslims firebomb church demanding Christian convert
You Are Not a Religion
In Habits of the Heart, written almost thirty years ago, sociologist Robert Bellah and his co-authors came up with a term to describe a new American religion: “Sheilaism.” The phrase comes from an interview Bellah conducted with a woman called Sheila, who described her religion as follows:
...At the same time that traditional Christian populations are being driven out, Muslims are converting to Christianity at what missionaries and other Church leaders describe as an unprecedented rate. Joel Rosenberg claims that “more Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus Christ today than at any other time in history.”
An Iranian dissident told Rosenberg that there may be as many as 4.5 million converts in Iran. New Testaments and other Christian literature have flooded Iran, and Iraqi pastors cannot keep up with the demand for Christian books and pamphlets. Out of the carnage of Sudan, as many as a million have become Christians since 2000. By 2005, there were reportedly 100,000 Christian converts in Saudi Arabia. Because of vicious persecution, it is impossible to tell how many Christians there are in Afghanistan, but some have estimated as many as 20-30,000, and there is a similar number in Uzbekistan, a country that twenty-five years ago had only a handful of believers. Accurate numbers are difficult to find and more difficult to confirm, but even if these are inflated, there’s little doubt that something remarkable is happening...
Doors close at Castel Gandolfo, Sede Vacante period begins
Elizabeth Scalia; Benedict’s Lessons for Americans
There was a striking sense of puzzlement amid American coverage of Benedict XVI's last day as pope. Even as they tried to capture every move and softly spoken word, media pronouncements contained a note of inexplicability, like punctuation marks strewn within the margins of a book. Behind their questions lay a sense of real confusion. Was this for real? Did anyone believe a man would remove himself from a throne to simply disappear from sight? He's going to still publish and speak … right?
Pope Benedict has pretty consistently confounded the press. When the shy, professorial man with the awkward body language did not align in any way with the "rottweiler" caricatures they assigned. Most media folk adapted to that reality with the more mature among them even admitted that Ratzinger's nature was more pastoral than expected....
Obama urges court to overturn gay marriage ban
...The Obama administration’s friend-of-the-court brief marked the first time a U.S. president has urged the high court to expand the right of gays and lesbians to wed. The filing unequivocally calls on the justices to strike down California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure, although it stops short of the soaring rhetoric on marriage equality Obama expressed in his inaugural address in January...
End of the Mainline
...More likely, the NCC’s move from New York to Capitol Hill will divorce it even further from most of its church constituents and presage its eventual, quiet death. The arc of the NCC’s story showcases the rise and fall of liberal Protestantism in America. It’s a sad tale but also instructive for the more robust churches of today.
I believe in God. I am not a fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It’s Sheilaism. Just my own little voice. . . . My own Sheilaism . . . is just to try to love yourself and be gentle with yourself. You know, I guess, take care of each other.Religious Change in the Middle East
...At the same time that traditional Christian populations are being driven out, Muslims are converting to Christianity at what missionaries and other Church leaders describe as an unprecedented rate. Joel Rosenberg claims that “more Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus Christ today than at any other time in history.”
An Iranian dissident told Rosenberg that there may be as many as 4.5 million converts in Iran. New Testaments and other Christian literature have flooded Iran, and Iraqi pastors cannot keep up with the demand for Christian books and pamphlets. Out of the carnage of Sudan, as many as a million have become Christians since 2000. By 2005, there were reportedly 100,000 Christian converts in Saudi Arabia. Because of vicious persecution, it is impossible to tell how many Christians there are in Afghanistan, but some have estimated as many as 20-30,000, and there is a similar number in Uzbekistan, a country that twenty-five years ago had only a handful of believers. Accurate numbers are difficult to find and more difficult to confirm, but even if these are inflated, there’s little doubt that something remarkable is happening...
Doors close at Castel Gandolfo, Sede Vacante period begins
Elizabeth Scalia; Benedict’s Lessons for Americans
There was a striking sense of puzzlement amid American coverage of Benedict XVI's last day as pope. Even as they tried to capture every move and softly spoken word, media pronouncements contained a note of inexplicability, like punctuation marks strewn within the margins of a book. Behind their questions lay a sense of real confusion. Was this for real? Did anyone believe a man would remove himself from a throne to simply disappear from sight? He's going to still publish and speak … right?
Pope Benedict has pretty consistently confounded the press. When the shy, professorial man with the awkward body language did not align in any way with the "rottweiler" caricatures they assigned. Most media folk adapted to that reality with the more mature among them even admitted that Ratzinger's nature was more pastoral than expected....
Obama urges court to overturn gay marriage ban
...The Obama administration’s friend-of-the-court brief marked the first time a U.S. president has urged the high court to expand the right of gays and lesbians to wed. The filing unequivocally calls on the justices to strike down California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure, although it stops short of the soaring rhetoric on marriage equality Obama expressed in his inaugural address in January...
End of the Mainline
...More likely, the NCC’s move from New York to Capitol Hill will divorce it even further from most of its church constituents and presage its eventual, quiet death. The arc of the NCC’s story showcases the rise and fall of liberal Protestantism in America. It’s a sad tale but also instructive for the more robust churches of today.
posted by Pat Dague @ 12:57 PM
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